This is a list of counties in New Hampshire. There are currently 10 counties in the U.S. state of New Hampshire. Five of the counties were create in 1769, when New Hampshire was still an English colony and not a state, during the first subdivision of the state into counties. The last counties created were Belknap County and Carroll County, in 1840. The majority of New Hampshire's counties were named for prominent British or American people or geographic locations and features. Only one county's name originates in a Native American language; Coos County, named for a Native American word meaning crooked and referring to a bend in the Connecticut River. The counties tend to be smaller in land area towards the southern end of the state, where New Hampshire population is concentrated, and larger in land area in the less populous north.